A month ago, special agent James Cronley Jr. managed to capture two notorious Nazi war criminals, but not without leaving some dead bodies and outraged Austrian police in his wake. However, somebody --- Odessa, the NKGB, the Hungarian Secret Police? --- has broken the criminals out of jail, and he must track them down again. There's more to it than that, though. Evidence has surfaced that in the war's last gasps, Heinrich Himmler had stashed away a fortune to build a secret religion, dedicated both to Himmler and to creating the Fourth Reich. That money is still out there in the hands of Odessa, and that infamous organization seems to have acquired a surprising --- and troubling --- ally.

When Jim Cronley hears he's just won the Legion of Merit, he figures there's another shoe to drop, and it's a big one: he's out as Chief, DCI-Europe. His new assignments, however, couldn't be bigger: to protect the U.S. chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials from a rumored Soviet NKGB kidnapping, and to hunt down and dismantle the infamous Odessa, an organization dedicated to helping Nazi war criminals escape to South America. It doesn't take long for the first attempt on his life, and then the second. NKGB or Odessa? Who can tell? The deeper he pushes, the more secrets tumble out.

January 1946: Two WACs leave an officers’ club in Munich, and four Soviet NKGB agents kidnap them at knifepoint in the parking lot and shove them in the back of an ambulance. That is the agents’ first mistake, and their last. One of the WACs, a blond woman improbably named Claudette Colbert, works for the new Directorate of Central Intelligence, and three of the men end up dead and the fourth wounded. The “incident,” however, will send shock waves rippling up and down the line and have major repercussions not only for her, but for her boss, James Cronley, Chief DCI-Europe, and for everybody involved in their still-evolving enterprise.

Having investigated his share of gruesome murders, Philadelphia Homicide Sergeant Matt Payne is beginning to think nothing can shock him --- until the case of a young socialite’s death lands on his desk. The Camilla Rose Morgan he’d known as a teenager was beautiful and brilliant. How was it possible she’d jumped to her death from her own balcony? Her brother tells Payne she’d tragically been battling a lifetime of mental demons, and there is plenty of evidence of it, but still…something just doesn’t sit right. The more Payne digs, the more complications he discovers. Reputations are on the line here, and lives --- and if Payne doesn’t tread carefully, one of them may be his own.

In Philadelphia, homicide is at an all-time high. With each violent crime, tension builds between the police department, the mayor’s office and the Citizens Oversight Committee. The most vocal activist, reformed drug dealer Reverend Josiah Cross, places the blame, and with it a target, squarely on the back of homicide sergeant Matt Payne. Now Payne must navigate death threats and misdirected public outrage to follow a strange pattern of seemingly unrelated killings. If he can’t find his way through, it could spell an end to his reputation, his work --- and maybe even his life.

James Cronley’s first successful mission for the about-to-be-official new Central Intelligence Directorate has drawn all kinds of attention. However, complications are springing up on all sides. He's discovered a surprising alliance between the former German intelligence chief and, of all things, the Mossad. A German family that Cronley never knew he had has suddenly, and suspiciously, emerged. And he’s due for a rendezvous with an undercover agent against the Soviets known only as Seven K.

In the first weeks after World War II, a squeaky-clean new second lieutenant named James D. Cronley Jr. is spotted and recruited for a new enterprise that eventually will be transformed into something called the CIA. One war may have ended, but another one has already begun, against an enemy that is bigger, smarter and more vicious: the Soviet Union.

Mexican drug cartels are shooting up the streets of Laredo and El Paso. Somali pirates are holding three U.S. tankers for ransom. The President is fed up and has what he thinks is a pretty bright idea --- to get hold of Colonel Charley Castillo and his merry band and put them on the case. But everybody knows that the President hates Castillo’s guts, has just had him forcibly retired from the military, and now Castillo’s men are scattered far and wide, many of them in hiding.

Russian girls are being smuggled in to work in the sex trade, and now some of them are dying or just disappearing. On top of this, teenage girls are being lured from foster homes. The lone living witness has gone into hiding, with everybody --- the Russians, the cartels, some of Philadelphia’s most powerful politicians --- all looking for her. It’s up to homicide detective Matt Payne to find her --- and hope he gets to her first.

In the closing months of World War II, the United States made a secret deal with the head of German intelligence’s Soviet section. In exchange for a treasure trove of intelligence, his people would be spirited to safety. If word got out, the U.S. would lose some of its best sources, not to mention its most valuable secrets. It’s up to Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS to keep them all safe. But some people have other ideas.

Two of the Allies’ most important plans for winning World War II are at grave risk. A furious FDR turns to OSS spy chief Wild Bill Donovan --- and Donovan turns to his top agent, Dick Canidy, and his team. In the weeks to come, they must fight not only the enemy in the field, but the enemy within. If the Soviets build their own atomic bomb, who knows where that might lead?

Few in the U.S. government want to believe that and its chest-thumping leader could pose a credible threat. But then why are the Chinese helping to train its special forces? Why are the Russians helping to build a nuclear power plant? Charley Castillo and his men go in to investigate.

Wars come to an end. But then new ones begin. Just weeks after Hitler's suicide, Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS find themselves up to their necks in battles every bit as fierce as the ones that just ended. One slip and everyone becomes a casualty of war.

Charlie Castillo's secret unit has been disbanded --- but that doesn't mean he's out of business. One day a FedEx package arrives, bearing photos of barrels containing some of the most dangerous biohazard materials on earth, all of which were supposed to have been destroyed during a raid on a secret Russian factory in the Congo.